Frustratingly, there is little video evidence: snippets from South Africa’s 4–0 win over the Australians in 1969–70; some clips from WSC; a hundred for Hampshire in the Gillette Cup against Lancashire, though the grainy footage and sloppy editing show us little of the magic. A worthwhile piece of film to study is the charity match at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1994, when, aged almost 50, he opened with Sunil Gavaskar against Lillee and Thomson for a World XI against a Bradman XI. Look at the economy and the precision of the strokes. It is an innings of just 24 runs but, other than the first and last balls, it is a lovely 24.
No batsman I have seen brought such grace and style to the nitty-gritty of the workplace. It was perfection, touched by something almost risqué, and satisfied all the requirements of a young boy in love with the game and its aesthetics.
As Bradman indicated, Pollock was really something—an executioner, albeit a graceful one with an insatiable appetite for runs. South Africans flocked to watch him in action and then, as the Castle lager took over, became almost tribalistic in their appreciation. As Graeme grew older, his stance became wider and his bat heavier, but the no-frills Pollock game stayed the same. Keep it simple, stupid, he seemed to say: rock back and forward and thump it for four. Disbelieving bowlers were left stranded in their follow-through by cover drives and pulls that destroyed their spirit.
In order to see him and Barry in the flesh against some of the bowlers we confronted daily in county cricket, Paul Terry and I went by ship (it was a cheap ticket) from Durban, where we were playing club cricket, to Port Elizabeth for a one-day match between South Africa and the rebel West Indians. Barry made a hundred but Graeme stole the show with an astonishing assault after being hit on the forehead by Sylvester Clarke. Having been stitched up in hospital, he returned to the ground in time to see Clarke knock over Garth le Roux with the first ball of a new spell. The crowd murmured both approval and concern when they saw the great man walking back to the wicket in a helmet. The first ball from the powerful Barbadian was quick, short and aimed at the stitches. It disappeared into the band of Cape Coloured musicians at square leg. So did the next one. All five balls went for four or six. He finished unbeaten on 66.
The England cricketers of the hour talk in awe of the 125 he made at Trent Bridge in 1965; Australians the same of the 274 at Durban in 1969–70. Like Richards, Pollock was cut down by apartheid but at least had 23 Test matches to make a case in the history books. It is hard to look beyond Graeme Pollock.
Unless you look to Sir Garfield. He was a shadow of himself when I caught him at Lord’s in 1973 but imagine the thrill of even the shadow of Garry Sobers in the flesh. Each step he took was an event, every stroke an imitation of art. He made 150 that day. Thanks, Garry. Rohan Kanhai made a tasty hundred too. We went home and suddenly West Indies were beating England in the back garden. We pushed up our collars, rolled our shoulders and thrashed back-foot drives without a care in the world. That was the thing about Sobers: it was as if he had not a care in the world. He had an amazing eye for the ball, fast hands and feet that danced—cricket’s Muhammad Ali, without the mouth. He could thread a gap where there seemed none and he could clear the ropes like few batsmen of the era. An hour of Sobers invariably changed a whole match. Geoffrey Boycott insists that of the players he saw, only Sobers, Richards and Lara had genius—no one else. I defer to Geoffrey occasionally. Anyway, if Bradman says Sobers’ 254 at the MCG was best innings he watched, so be it.
There was something of the Roman emperors in Greg Chappell. His walk to the wicket was brisk, shoulders back, head held high as he appeared to survey the enemy in pity. The strokes were from the classics, upright and surprisingly powerful. There was an on drive to die for, and uncanny placement through point and the covers. Everything about him was precise and serene; the only surprise came when he was out, as it seemed so unlikely.
We played against him once at Southampton, when the Australians were over for the Centenary Test in 1980. He had an aura, and some game. At tea he was 86 not out and we heard that he was going to retire on the basis that the Hampshire attack did not merit a first-class hundred. It was a fair call: we were rubbish. In the end he decided against it and, instead, ran past a straight one from the left-arm spinner John Southern. My memory is of the utter certainty in his batting, and of its elegance. I can hear the cleanest sound of bat on ball and still see a cruel beauty in the way he picked us off.
People talk of his bad run against West Indies in the early 1980s, but it was brief. Across seventeen tests against the most formidable fast-bowling attack in the history of the game, he averaged 56, a performance that brooks no argument.
Finally, then, to Sunil Gavaskar, whose batsmanship carried the hopes of a billion people long before Tendulkar was around to assume the responsibility. Gavaskar was the man who tucked in behind the ball to apply a perfect technique and the soundest judgement in the making of 34 Test-match hundreds. His defiance spoke for new India before it was fashionable to do so: ‘We will not be bullied, we will fight them on the fields of Mumbai, Georgetown, and Melbourne [where he once attempted a coup, so angry was he at being adjudged lbw to Lillee] and we will never surrender.’
We saw Sunny up close and personal at Southampton. An Indian journalist had written him off before the 1979 tour of England, so he took it out on Hampshire. Sunny explains: ‘I was furious with this irresponsible man who knew nothing of the illness I had been through and the conversations I had had with the selectors prior to the tour. So I dug in for a hundred come what may against Hampshire and then, once I got there, decided to have some fun and entertain the crowd who had put up with me blocking for most of the day!’ He made an unbeaten 166.
His thirteen hundreds against West Indies at an average of 65.45 are the stuff of a true champion, though it should be acknowledged that a fair whack of his career against them came before the best of the four-pronged pace attack came together. Having said that, his unbeaten Test best of 236 in Chennai against Marshall, Roberts, Holding and Davis was a reminder that all things are possible if you have a mind for them. He batted at four that day but came in at 0 for 2! Only a handful of batsmen have used the strength of their mind so effectively.
In the second part of his career Sunny wore a skullcap, mainly beneath his sunhat, but the foundation of his many hours in the middle was a rock steady head, set bare to the bowler. He benefited from a sharp eye, trained on the badminton court, and a compact and orthodox stance that allowed him to pick length quickly and respond efficiently.
So who is it to be, this mythical best after Bradman in the modern age of the game? It is tempting to say that Sir Donald might have been right about the two South Africans but there simply is not enough history to go on. Barry has been my own favourite batsman; only Sachin nudged him for me. Tendulkar might well be the perfect answer, linked as he was to Bradman himself. Think of the many miles he covered without compromise and the way he inspired a nation, much as Bradman had done before him. Bradman, of course, never played outside Australia or England. Tendulkar was a global phenomenon who defied Imran Khan in the late 1980s, Shane Warne in the late 1990s and Dale Steyn in 2011. Bradman and Tendulkar were both able to isolate the challenge and apply themselves whatever the expectation. Sachin could be my man but for the helmet.
I am taking Tendulkar and Lara out of this argument; Kohli and de Villiers too. Helmets have changed batting. There is no question that the merits of the modern greats sit alongside those of the past but this mission has altered the longer I have thought about it. I have concluded that our champion must have played within the same parameters as Bradman, in other words in the days before helmets.
I go for the majesty of Sir Garfield Sobers, for his ability to make cricket a thing of beauty and joy; for breaking the world record score as a young man and playing with the same instincts as an old man; and for scoring more than 8000 runs at an average of nearly 58. Remember, he had all those late nights to recover from, never mind that he bowled quick,
quicker and slow—both left-arm orthodox and over the wrist. Oh, and he caught flies wherever he fielded. Yup, it’s Garry.
BACK TO THE BEGINNING
Batting is a craft that has evolved over a couple of centuries. Film of W.G. Grace in the nets does not tell us much, other than how different the game was back then. The same can be said about grainy footage of Jack Hobbs, although 199 first-class hundreds must count for something. Photographs at the MCG of Walter Hammond and Bill Ponsford remind us that many of the pitches of the day were barely identifiable from the outfields, and therefore the balance between bat and ball was far less weighted in favour of batsmen than it is today. In 1937, the lbw law changed so that bowlers could trap a batsman in front by pitching the ball outside off stump and bringing it back into his pads. Previously the ball had to pitch on the stumps and be going on to hit them, which takes some bowling. Imagine the hurried changes to technique upon the introduction of that new law.
For what it is worth, John Arlott told me that Hobbs was as good or better a technician than Barry Richards, and E.W. Swanton said the same of Walter Hammond. Bradman had Hammond as 12th man in his team that included Tendulkar in the middle order.
The evolution of batting has been slow and precise. Batsmen have responded to the equipment, conditions, formats and public demand with rhythms of their own. Only of late has the evolution become revolution. In T20 cricket, sixes are like confetti. In Test matches, hundreds are sometimes scored at better than a run a ball. At Newlands, Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow put on 399 at nearly 7 an over. A few days later, a fifteen-year-old Indian, Pranav Dhanawade, made 1009 in one innings over two afternoons. Not even Tendulkar did that.
The bats are bigger and better, the men using them are stronger, the pitches are flatter, the balls do precious little, the boundaries are shorter and the coaches and captains grant a licence as never before. It is a wonderful time to bat.
For as long as Test cricket maintains its place at the top table, we can be reasonably assured of an ongoing reference to the techniques that have made batting an art form. Its talent can be defined in various ways, among them resilience and application. Of late, no one has better illustrated this than Alastair Cook, whose ten thousand Test match runs are the work of a clear mind and strong body. A good, relatively orthodox method is adaptable to all forms of the game and is one reason cricket remains aesthetically appealing, even as we have moved from touch and timing into this era of brutality. Kohli, de Villiers and Root have crossed this divide with élan.
Batting is moving so fast it is hard to predict what will come next. The nature of cricket has always led to one inherent fear: failure. T20 all but eliminates this for batsmen. It is virtually impossible to be bowled out in 20 overs and therefore the currency of wickets has lost value.
A couple of years back, Kevin Pietersen and I were talking about risk. Well, I was. He just laughed. He said I was missing the point and that he didn’t care about getting out, only that he had given himself the chance to do something different. He added, ‘As long as I prepare well and play to my ability, everything will take care of itself. Either way, the sun will come up in the morning.’ Such an attitude is incomprehensible to players brought up in an age when the preservation of your wicket was a lifelong pursuit.
The best batsmen of the day weigh up myriad different options compared to those of the past. When Viv first hit balls from outside off stump through mid wicket and Barry backed away to leg and drove over cover, the sheer bravado drew gasps of admiration. Nowadays, if you bat at eight and can’t hit over cover, you’re not good enough. The zeitgeist of shot-making is a straight half-volley ramped over third man or a wide one reversed over long leg.
Can the ball survive this heady advance of the bat? If it is to do so, the size of the bat must be limited. While that piece of legislation is being drawn up, the ball needs a more prominent seam again. The challenge for cricket is to keep all the skills of the game moving forward together, reflecting, as far as possible, the times in which we live. If batting is to remain artistic, it cannot become easy and neither should it be reduced to the lowest common denominator. Artists make their achievements look easy but it is the ten thousand hours of exploration, experimentation, practice and rehearsal that make perfect. Not even in batting is there pleasure without pain.
CHAPTER 7
The week we wished that wasn’t and the spirit of cricket
Sydney, 25 November 2014
In the middle of the afternoon, a newsflash came on the car radio. Phillip Hughes, the South Australian batsman, had been hit by a short ball in a Sheffield Shield match at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The match was between New South Wales, the state in which Hughes grew up and had played most of his cricket, and South Australia, where he was now playing. He had been rushed to St Vincent’s Hospital in a critical condition.
I was en route to the New South Wales Golf Club in La Perouse and immediately pulled the car into a lay by. I knew Hughes quite well and liked him immensely. I recalled the various blows I had taken. Gladstone Small broke my cheekbone; Waqar Younis some of my hand. Courtney Walsh, Sylvester Clarke and Graham Dilley had all damaged me at one stage or another during an eighteen-year first-class career in which I bore the brunt of many a fast bowler’s aggression. (Something to do with a public-schoolboy swagger, apparently.) Though the physical threat was relevant, I don’t ever recall being frightened of the ball—only of humiliation and failure.
Helmets were just coming into the game when I started in first-class cricket. Few players wore them and virtually no one wore the visor too, only the side pieces. In 1980, I went out to bat against Sussex wearing a sunhat. From long leg, Imran Khan shouted to Le Roux, ‘Look Garth, no helmet!’ and they bombed me for the brief period I was at the crease. After a couple of overs I was caught at the wicket: a brute of a ball from Imran that brushed my glove at throat height. Though I stopped short of shouting ‘Catch it!’ I was relieved to be out of the line of fire. It was typical of the time that the fast bowlers thought nothing of such threatening intimidation, and it was stupid of me not to have practised in a helmet and to not have had one to hand at the match. Like plenty of others around the country—our team included—the pros at Sussex revelled in the machismo given them by the overseas stars. They fed off this frenzy of short-pitched bowling and I was unable to cope.
In the dressing room, I cried.
Until you bat against the fastest and the best, you can have little idea what is involved. The experience is far removed from anything else in a young cricketer’s life. You see the ball but not in a conscious, responsive way. It appears first as a small, dark missile screaming towards you—the size of a squash ball perhaps, before nearness brings reality of size and colour—and then, when it hits bat or body, the immediate impact feels heavy, dense and hard. Ideally, as discussed in the previous chapter, you have pre-set movements to cope: back and across; forward press; an early move to off stump, then repo with your head still, are the most commonly used triggers that help find the right place from which to react. After that, you trust hours of practice and your instinct. The best batsmen see the ball earlier than the rest of us and therefore have more options. The Richards and Sobers ability to pick up length from the point of the ball’s release from the hand seems almost impossible to those of us not blessed by such speed of eye and reaction.
I was lost in these thoughts when the phone rang, making me jump. Did I know about Phil Hughes? Yes, I did and yes it is terrible. I have no recollection of who called. I started the engine and headed on to La Perouse in a daze. On arrival at the golf club, desperate to know more, I telephoned Michael Clarke but it went to voicemail.
After thirteen holes in the evening sunshine, all of them punctuated by worried conversations about Hughes, helmets and bouncers, a text from Clarke appeared on my phone. It said, ‘I’m at the hospital, mate. Fuck me, I’m scared.’ Clarke had long been both buddy and mentor to Hughes—an older brother in all but blood.
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sp; An operation to release the pressure on Hughes’s brain had already taken place. He had been hit on the neck, just beneath the left side of his skull, behind his earlobe. Footage on the news showed him to be through the attempted hook shot a fraction early. The Australian doctor Peter Bruckner explained the procedure and added that Hughes remained critical. He did not say the operation was a success or that Hughes was stable. He did say that Hughes was in an induced coma. Clearly, he was fighting for his life.
Channel Nine’s Today Show called. They wanted to interview me live in the studio at seven the next morning. I hate that early morning thing but said yes. Going to bed, I felt much the same way as Clarke: scared.
26 November
A terrible night’s sleep. Tossing, turning. At 1.45 am I took half a sleeping pill. When the alarm went at 5.45 am, the duvet was on the floor and my body had contorted in such a way that I was lying almost upside down. All the news bulletins said Hughes was a little battler and would pull though. ‘How do you pull through if in a coma?’ I wondered.
Karl Stefanovic, co-host of the Today Show, asked me some good questions. He had a helmet there and he asked me to explain how the ball had missed it as Hughes turned his head. After doing so, I suggested that a modification was required, as much to the shape of the design as to the membrane. I had shown how he was through the shot too early, which is as dangerous as too late. I talked about the 25-year-old Hughes I knew and went on to say that the bowler, Sean Abbott, had a difficult time ahead and would need support. As Mark Taylor put it on Nine News: ‘I only hope Sean can forgive himself, which will be doubly difficult because there isn’t actually anything to forgive himself for.’
I was home at 7.45 am, knackered. I tried to go back to sleep but it was hopeless. By 11 am, I was at the Australian Golf Club for the pro-am event on the eve of the The Australian Open. Rory McIlroy was back to defend the title he had won the year before from Adam Scott in a thrilling finish at Royal Sydney. But everyone was talking about Phillip Hughes.
A Beautiful Game Page 17
